Jed Lowrie irks Astros, who drop 5th straight

OAKLAND, Calif. — The only fight the Astros gave the A’s on Friday was verbal.

The game was over in the first inning, although the jawing was not. An 11-3 win for the A’s gave the ‘Stros a losing streak that matches their win total: five games.

For a change, the Astros’ offense wasn’t to blame. Give them credit for keeping their means of self-destruction fresh.

Astros starter Jarred Cosart is the Nuke LaLoosh of this rotation, with a potential only matched this season by his inconsistency. He recorded just one out Friday, walking four and allowing three hits — two of them home runs. The Astros were in a 7-0 hole after one inning.

The most exciting moment all night came just outside the visiting dugout, at the end of the third inning. Astros manager Bo Porter felt a need to yell at former Astros shortstop Jed Lowrie — and flip over a dugout cooler.

Lowrie seemed to engender bad feelings because of an early bunt he dropped down when the A’s already had a big lead.

Righty Paul Clemens threw a pitch that went through Lowrie’s legs to start off Lowrie’s third inning at-bat. Clemens said the pitch was unintentional.

Said Lowrie: “He was obviously trying to hit me, and he wasn’t able to hit me.”

Three pitches later, Lowie ran out a fly ball to left, which ended the inning. As Astros second baseman Jose Altuve was coming off the field, Lowrie attempted to talk to his former teammate near first base.

Lowrie said he wanted to hear from Altuve why Clemens had seemingly thrown at him, but Altuve said afterward he didn’t know what Lowrie was saying.

More heated than anyone, Porter jumped out of the dugout and yelled to Lowrie to go take his spot at shortstop. Lowrie, who had first-base coach Tye Waller by his side, put his arms up as if to say, “What did I do?”

Clemens took a dig after in the clubhouse.

“Lowrie’s not an imposing guy,” Clemens said. “I guess I was a little surprised that a guy like that kind of got stirred up, but so be it.”

Porter never managed Lowrie, whom the Astros traded way just before spring training last year. Lowrie did play with Clemens in 2012, for all of one minor league game.

If Clemens had intent, it likely was because of Lowrie’s second at-bat of the game — in the first inning.

The A’s already led 7-0, and Lowrie bunted for the final out of the frame with the Astros in the shift.

“They’re essentially asking me to bunt, aren’t they?” Lowrie said of the defense. “That early in the game? Open up a hole like that? I don’t understand why you would get so upset about that when it was your choice to play the shift in the first place.”

Lowrie too might have taken his own dig, at the Astros’ inconsequential position in the standings the last few years.

“We’re talking about the first inning of a major league game,” Lowrie said. “These games are important and there’s a lot on the line.”

Cosart, already out of the game, thought that Lowrie was trying to avoid making two outs in the same inning.

No one on the Astros came out and said that what Lowrie did was wrong. The closest seemed to be Porter, who said only that “nothing happened, the game takes care of itself.”

Said Clemens: “He gave me a free out, easy out. So I mean, any time you want to hand me a free out, I’ll take it. You know, from the etiquette standpoint, I’m not so sure about major league baseball, I haven’t been here long enough. I have no problem with it.”

Astros right fielder George Springer’s first career RBI, on a fifth-inning single, qualified as exciting too. The Astros scored all of their runs in that frame, and Springer’s single up the middle brought in Jose Altuve.

Springer was hitting clean-up Friday, and it was just his third career big-league game. He had a hard single in his next at-bat, too, through the hole on the left side leading off the seventh. He’s yet to have a hitless night in the bigs.

If there was a silver lining Friday, it was the Astros’ number of hits: 10. That not only matched the Athletics’ output from Friday, it matched the Astros’ season-high from two nights ago.

Still, those hits didn’t add up to many runs against A’s ace Sonny Gray, who allowed all of the Astros’ runs in a six-inning, four strikeout effort.

“We talked to these guys today and just told ‘em, we said, ‘Listen, man, people start to look at slumps — it’s small samples,’” Porter said. “And you can get caught up real easy. Just as fast as a guy can go 0-for-20, a guy can go 10-for-20, and think, ‘Wow, this guy’s the best player ever.’ It all goes in cycles.”

The Astros needed four relievers after Cosart’s straining start. Clemens’ 4 1/3 innings accounted for most of the load.

Cosart accepted responsibility for the early crater of a deficit, but said he had trouble gripping the baseballs.

“They were slipping out of my hand a little bit,” Cosart said. “They didn’t feel unusually slick to me. I know some other guys said they might have felt a little slick.”

The two sides couldn’t even agree on the leather. Gray, when asked, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the balls were “fine.”